Non-Premixed Combustion — ANSYS Fluent CFD SimulationDescriptionThis project simulates non-premixed combustion in a 2D combustion chamber, where air and hydrocarbon fuel enter through two separate inlets and react to release the fuel's chemical energy as heat. It's a foundational study in reacting-flow CFD — the configuration that describes most real burners, furnaces, and gas-turbine combustors, where fuel and oxidizer are deliberately kept apart until they meet in the reaction zone. As the opening project of the Chemical Reactions: Beginner CFD Training Package, it introduces the most approachable combustion model — the mixture-fraction approach — and establishes the reacting-flow foundation for the cases that follow.MethodologyThe key modeling choice is the non-premixed (mixture-fraction) approach within Fluent's Species Transport framework. Instead of tracking every reaction rate directly, the model solves transport equations for the mixture fraction — the local mass fraction originating from the fuel stream — and reads the resulting species and temperatures from pre-computed chemistry. This is what makes non-premixed combustion both efficient and stable: the chemistry is folded into the mixture fraction, so you model the mixing and let the thermochemistry follow. By definition, the fuel and oxidizer enter through independent paths and do not premix before reaching the chamber. An air stream (N₂ at mass fraction 0.767, O₂ at 0.233) enters at 300 K and 1.19 kg/s, while a pure CH₄ (methane) stream enters at 300 K and 0.019 kg/s through a separate inlet. The geometry is built in Design Modeler and meshed in ANSYS Meshing as an unstructured mesh of 11,202 cells.AnalysisThe results provide contours of pressure, temperature, velocity, and density, plus mass-fraction fields for O₂, CH₄, H₂O, CO₂, N₂, CO, and C₂H₆, along with in-chamber pathlines. The fields confirm a properly anchored combustion reaction: methane and air react where the streams meet, consuming reactants and producing CO₂, H₂O, and intermediates like CO — and the temperature field maps the flame and hot-product zone exactly where the mixture fraction is near stoichiometric. By the end of this project, you'll be able to set up Species Transport with the non-premixed mixture-fraction model, define separate fuel and oxidizer inlets with realistic compositions and flow rates, and read flame structure and product formation from temperature and species contours.

DescriptionThis project uses ANSYS Fluent to simulate multi-jet ethylene-air combustion, applying species transport and reacting flow modeling to a core problem in chemical reaction flow engineering. The simulation examines how multiple angled jets mix and react, capturing the interaction between turbulent flow, species transport, and chemical reaction — relevant to combustion systems across aerospace propulsion, gas turbines, and industrial furnaces.MethodologyA 2D combustion chamber geometry with multiple jet inlets is built in DesignModeler and meshed in ANSYS Meshing using a structured grid of 9,928 elements. The simulation uses a pressure-based, steady-state solver, with the Species Transport model configured for volumetric reactions to represent ethylene-air combustion, and the Eddy-Dissipation model applied to capture turbulence-chemistry interaction.ConclusionResults include pressure, velocity, and temperature contours, along with species concentration distributions showing combustion product formation. The simulation reveals how jet velocity and angle affect mixing and combustion behavior, temperature distributions and peak combustion zones, and the formation of combustion products relevant to emissions. These findings support combustor design optimization for improved combustion efficiency and reduced emissions across aerospace, power generation, and industrial thermal systems.

Gas Flare, Two-Step Air–Methane Mechanism Combustion, ANSYS Fluent CFD Simulation TutorialDescriptionThis project simulates combustion in a gas flare, using a two-step methane–air mechanism, in the presence of a crosswind, with ANSYS Fluent.This case is a clear example of a reacting flow, where the fluid motion and the chemistry are solved together: the flow carries fuel and air into the flame, the combustion reactions release heat and change the gas composition, and the resulting temperature and density fields feed back into the flow. Modeling this coupling is exactly what the reacting-flow (species transport) approach is built for.A gas flare is a combustion device used in industrial facilities such as oil and gas refineries and at production wells, particularly on offshore platforms, to safely burn off natural gas.The 3-D geometry was built in Design Modeler. Because the flare is symmetric, only half of it is modeled to cut the computational cost, with a symmetry boundary condition applied. The flare has a cylindrical body with four outlet ducts and sits inside a computational domain that carries the wind flow; this domain is likewise halved along the symmetry plane. The model was meshed in ANSYS Meshing with 1,546,925 elements.Simulation MethodologyGas flares burn the natural gas released during oil extraction. During extraction, natural gas accumulates above the oil in the reservoir. Collecting and storing this gas is preferable, but where that is not possible it is flared. Burning the gas in a flare avoids uncontrolled, hazardous release, and converting methane to carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere is less harmful than releasing the methane directly.To capture the chemistry, the species transport model is used with volumetric reactions enabled, and the eddy-dissipation model estimates the reaction rate. A methane–air mixture burns through a two-step mechanism: first methane and oxygen react to form carbon monoxide (and water), then the carbon monoxide combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. Air enters the domain at 0.2 m/s and 300 K, and the fuel enters at 0.1 m/s and 300 K. The realizable k-ε model and the energy equation are enabled to solve the turbulent flow and compute the temperature distribution.Results & ConclusionAfter solving, two- and three-dimensional contours of pressure, temperature, velocity, and the mass fraction of each modeled species were obtained, with the two-dimensional contours shown on the geometry's symmetry plane.The species mass-fraction contours confirm that the reaction takes place: the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide contours show these products being generated, while the methane contour shows the hydrocarbon being consumed as the reactant. The contours also show that the crosswind carries the combustion products, such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, away from the flare and disperses them into the surrounding environment.

DescriptionThis project investigates non-premixed hydrogen–air combustion in a lab-to-semi-industrial-scale furnace, with a particular focus on how the accuracy of viscosity and thermal-conductivity modeling affects predicted flame behavior. Rather than relying on default property models, the simulation pairs Sutherland's law for viscosity with kinetic-theory-based thermal conductivity, since correctly capturing these fluid properties is central to how well turbulence and chemistry couple in a reacting flow. The furnace geometry has separate fuel and air inlets: air enters at 0.01 kg/s and hydrogen at 0.0003 kg/s, giving a stoichiometric mixture (equivalence ratio of 1), with the fuel inlet centered 0.25 m from the furnace floor and nested within the air inlet. The outlet is set to atmospheric pressure, and the side walls lose heat to the surroundings by convection and radiation through a 5 cm steel shell, with a heat transfer coefficient of 16 W/m²K, an ambient temperature of 300 K, and a sky temperature of 271.2 K.MethodologyThe domain is discretized with a structured mesh built in ANSYS Meshing, and the non-premixed air/hydrogen mixture is handled through the Species Transport model. Turbulence is closed with the standard k–ε model, while the combustion itself is resolved through the eddy dissipation approach, with energy source diffusion and turbulence–chemistry interaction both active; this method assumes species conversion is fast relative to turbulent mixing, which holds well for atmospheric-pressure reactions in an open furnace geometry. Pressure–velocity coupling uses the SIMPLE algorithm, gradients are discretized with Least Squares Cell-Based, pressure with Second Order, and all other variables with Second Order Upwind, with under-relaxation tuned to bring the solution to convergence.AnalysisThe centerline results at the fuel inlet show a peak velocity of 1063 m/s and a peak temperature of 1860 K, with H2 mass fraction dropping to zero by the facing surface and H2O mass fraction rising from zero to a steady 0.23 after about 0.3 m. The reaction rate peaks at 0.23 kmol/m³/s just 2 cm from the inlet and falls to zero by 0.4 m, marking where the flame effectively completes. Volumetric temperature contours show a furnace-wide maximum of 2102.56 K, with higher average temperatures concentrated in the lower furnace, while isotherm planes spaced 0.125 m apart confirm a peak of 2080 K. Velocity is presented both at full scale and capped at 100 m/s to expose lower-speed flow structures that would otherwise be masked, and mass fraction contours on the furnace's symmetry plane trace how combustion species distribute through the chamber. Eddy viscosity fields illustrate the turbulent kinetic energy cascading into internal energy, tying the flow's turbulent structure directly to the high-temperature zones identified elsewhere in the results. Taken together, the results indicate that the eddy dissipation method, combined with the Sutherland/kinetic-theory property treatment, reproduces the expected physics of a fast, mixing-limited combustion process with good fidelity across velocity, temperature, species, and reaction-rate fields.

Vortex Flame Combustion Chamber, 4-Inlet (Methane and Air) — ANSYS Fluent CFD Simulation TrainingThis project simulates the vortex flame inside a combustion chamber using ANSYS Fluent, with the full case analyzed through CFD post-processing.The geometry is a three-dimensional cylindrical combustion chamber built in Design Modeler. Air enters through four inlet sections arranged radially around the chamber, while fuel enters through four inlet sections positioned axially at the top. A single outlet at the bottom of the chamber discharges the combustion products.The mesh was generated in ANSYS Meshing using a structured grid, with a total of 725,521 elements.MethodologyThe chamber has a cylindrical structure in which the reactants — fuel and air — enter separately through four inlets in the upper region, and the reaction products exit from the bottom.Air enters radially through four inlets spaced 90 degrees apart around the outer circumference of the chamber, while methane is injected directly into the chamber interior through the remaining four inlets. This arrangement establishes the swirling, vortex-shaped flame at the heart of the model.The chemical reaction between air and methane is modeled with the Species Transport model, involving five species: O₂, N₂, CH₄, CO₂, and H₂O. The incoming air contains a mass fraction of 0.23 oxygen, with a flow rate of 0.001135845 kg/s at 300 K. The fuel enters simultaneously at a flow rate of 0.0000645 kg/s, also at 300 K.The outer wall is treated as a convective boundary exchanging heat with the surroundings, with an ambient (free-stream) temperature of 300 K and a heat transfer coefficient of 25 W/m²·K.The RNG k-epsilon turbulence model and the energy equation are both activated to resolve the turbulent flow field and compute the temperature distribution throughout the domain.ResultsThe solution yields 2D and 3D contours of pressure, temperature, velocity, and the mass fractions of O₂, CH₄, H₂O, CO₂, and N₂.The contours show that as combustion takes place between fuel and air, temperature rises sharply near the chamber inlets. As the reaction proceeds, the methane mass fraction decreases while the mass fractions of the combustion products — CO₂ and H₂O — increase accordingly.

Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) — ANSYS Fluent CFD SimulationDescriptionThis project presents a CFD simulation of Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) — the most widely used industrial process for producing hydrogen from hydrocarbon fuels. In an SMR plant, methane reacts with steam over a catalyst to produce hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide through a set of endothermic reactions, with the required heat supplied by a burner in a surrounding heating chamber. In this project, you'll model a sleeve-type SMR reactor, capturing both the catalytic reforming reactions inside the tubes and the combustion that supplies their heat — a genuinely multi-physics chemical engineering problem. Within the Chemical Reactions: Beginner CFD Training Package, this project moves beyond pure combustion into industrial reacting-flow, coupling catalytic chemistry with the combustion that drives it.MethodologyThe SMR plant geometry — a heating chamber plus reforming tubes — is designed in Design Modeler and meshed in ANSYS Meshing with a large unstructured grid of roughly 1.65 million elements to resolve the complex multi-zone reactor. The Species Transport model is set up to track multiple chemical species (H₂, CO, CO₂, CH₄, O₂), with multiple volumetric reactions defined — three reforming reactions inside the tubes and one combustion reaction in the thermal chamber. A porous medium is modeled as the catalyst inside the reforming tubes, coupling the reacting flow with porous-zone behavior. The setup handles the endothermic reforming reactions and the heat coupling between the burner and the reforming tubes, so the combustion heat drives the hydrogen-producing chemistry inside the tubes.AnalysisPost-processing focuses on the mass-fraction contours of each species, verifying methane consumption and hydrogen production and confirming that the reactor is operating correctly. From these fields you can follow how the reforming reactions convert methane and steam into hydrogen along the tubes, and how the combustion in the surrounding chamber supplies the heat that sustains them. Hydrogen is central to clean energy, ammonia synthesis, and refining, and the skills built here — multi-reaction Species Transport coupled with catalytic porous zones — transfer directly to catalytic converters, fuel reformers, chemical reactors, and combustion systems across the process industries. By the end of this project, you'll be able to set up a multi-reaction Species Transport model, couple reacting flow with a catalytic porous zone, handle endothermic reactions with burner heat coupling, and interpret species contours to evaluate reactor performance.

Decomposition of MgO with Argon Gas for Magnesium Particle Production — ANSYS Fluent SimulationIntroductionThermal decomposition, or thermolysis, is a chemical breakdown driven by heat. The decomposition temperature of a substance is the temperature at which it chemically breaks apart. Such reactions are typically endothermic, since energy is required to sever the chemical bonds within the compound. In line with the equation below, the decomposition of magnesium oxide is an endothermic reaction, and here the process is driven by preheating the system with argon gas:MgO(s) → Mg(s) + O₂(g)This project presents a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of a magnesium–oxygen (Mg–O) thermal reaction using ANSYS Fluent. The aim is to investigate the coupled interactions between fluid flow, heat transfer, and chemical reaction within a specialized reactor geometry. A clear understanding of these processes is essential for optimizing the design and operation of Mg–O-based energy systems, which hold promise for clean energy production and storage.The geometry was created in ANSYS Design Modeler and meshed in ANSYS Meshing, producing a structured grid of 53,760 elements. This level of refinement provides a good balance between computational accuracy and efficiency.MethodologyA steady-state, pressure-based solver was used together with the SST k-omega turbulence model. Reaction modeling was handled with the Species Transport model coupled to the Eddy-Dissipation turbulence-chemistry interaction. The Discrete Phase Model (DPM) was activated to capture particle behavior, with droplet-type particles evaporating from the MgO-particle phase into the MgO-fluid phase.For the boundary conditions, argon gas together with MgO particles is injected from the right inlet, while argon gas alone enters from the left inlet.ConclusionThe CFD simulation of the Mg–O thermal reaction offers valuable insight into the coupled processes occurring inside the reactor. The key findings are as follows:Static Pressure — The pressure field ranges from −1.893 to 2.994 Pa, with higher values near the walls and lower values in the central region, a distribution that promotes reactant mixing.Temperature — Temperatures span 300–700 K, peaking in the lower chamber and at the outlet, which marks the primary reaction zone.Velocity — Velocity magnitudes range from 0 to 2.199 m/s, with complex flow patterns and recirculation zones that enhance mixing and boost reaction rates.Species Distribution — The Mg mass fraction (0–0.06) is highest in the lower chamber, coinciding with the high-temperature regions. The MgO-fluid mass fraction (0–0.1) peaks in the central chamber, illustrating product formation and transport. The O₂ mass fraction (0–0.039) is inversely correlated with the Mg concentration, confirming the progress of the reaction.Together, these results demonstrate the interplay between fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and chemical reaction. The reaction is most intense in the lower chamber, where significant recirculation strengthens mixing, and the formation and distribution of the MgO-fluid product are clearly observed.

DescriptionThis project investigates combustion inside an industrial biomass waste incinerator using ANSYS Fluent, with the goal of understanding how fluid flow, heat transfer, and chemical reactions interact to produce uniform combustion across the waste surface, a key factor in waste-to-energy efficiency. The geometry includes a trapezoidal waste pile, multiple air and fuel inlets, two exhaust gas outlets, and a cooling system, built in Design Modeler and meshed in ANSYS Meshing with 513,233 elements.MethodologyThe simulation runs steady-state with a pressure-based solver, using the Realizable k-epsilon model with standard wall functions to resolve the complex flow patterns inside the incinerator. The energy equation is enabled to capture the thermal behavior driving and resulting from combustion. Chemistry is represented through the Species Transport model, defining two primary reactions, CH4 + O2 and H2 + O2, with the eddy-dissipation model handling turbulence-chemistry interaction under the fast-chemistry assumption typical of industrial combustion. Since the waste itself continuously generates combustible gases as it burns, fixed source terms for CO and H2 mass fraction are applied directly at the rubbish surface boundary to represent this ongoing gas release.AnalysisThe results show a strong temperature gradient through the incinerator, rising from a 300 K inlet to an average zone temperature of 2619.4 K and an outlet chamber temperature of 4042.636 K, confirming substantial heat generation in the main combustion region. Velocity contours reveal complex internal flow patterns reaching up to 33.25 m/s, which govern how effectively air and fuel mix and how heat distributes through the chamber. Static temperature contours show peaks above 4000 K in the core combustion zone, with the waste surface itself showing higher temperatures near the fuel inlets and in areas of stronger air-fuel mixing. CH4 and CO2 mass fraction contours trace the reaction's progress directly, with CH4 concentrated near the fuel inlets and CO2 building up downstream in the post-combustion zones, while temperature-colored pathlines show recirculation zones forming as air and fuel streams interact, which enhances mixing and helps drive more complete combustion. Together these results indicate the current inlet layout achieves good overall combustion performance, though adjusting inlet positions and flow rates could further even out the temperature distribution across the waste surface, a change that would likely improve combustion efficiency and reduce emissions.

DescriptionThis project simulates the combustion reaction — fire and smoke — arising from a leaking pressure tank in a factory using ANSYS Fluent. The factory is modeled as a computational domain containing several elements such as tanks, plates, and boxes. A cylindrical pressurized tank develops a leak, releasing flammable methane gas into the surrounding environment; the contact of this methane with the free ambient air then leads to a combustion reaction.The aim of the project is to investigate the behavior of the combustion flame and the path of smoke emission over time, so the simulation is carried out in a time-dependent (transient) manner.The study proceeds in two steps. The first step examines only the leakage of methane from inside the tank into the surrounding space, with methane released gradually over time. The second step allows this leaked gas to react with the air and ignite, producing flame and smoke (carbon dioxide) through the combustion reaction. In the first step there is no need to define a chemical reaction — only air and methane are present, without reaction. Both the factory air and the methane inside the tank are under pressure; a groove at the top of the tank serves as the leakage point, and assigning a higher initial pressure to the methane drives its release into the outer environment. Once the release has fully developed, the combustion reaction between methane and the free air is defined using stoichiometric coefficients, with methane and oxygen as reactants and carbon dioxide and water vapor as products. A spark is also defined at the groove section of the tank to initiate combustion.The geometry was created as a 3D model in Design Modeler, and meshing was performed in ANSYS Meshing using an unstructured grid of 124,162 cells.MethodologyThe viscous model used is RNG k-epsilon with standard wall functions. The solver is transient, and the energy equation is enabled to capture the temperature field. The Species Transport model is used to simulate the combustion reaction.ConclusionAfter the simulation, the behavior of the reactants and reaction products was examined. To study the flame, an iso-surface at a constant temperature was used, with the flame temperature taken as the measure representing the flame's extent. To investigate the smoke produced by combustion, the behavior of carbon dioxide — defined as a product of the reaction — was examined, using its mass fraction as the iso-surface measure. Similarly, the leaked methane was tracked using its mass fraction as an iso-surface measure. Methane leakage before combustion, and the flame and carbon dioxide emission after combustion, were all studied at different time instants and presented as animations.In the first step, the results clearly capture the leakage process: methane first fills the pressurized tank, then, once the leak occurs, escapes into the surrounding environment at high pressure. In the second step, the results show the onset of the combustion reaction. The temperature rises sharply as a result of the explosion; the flame grows at the start of combustion and then gradually fades over time. Carbon dioxide is produced throughout the space, confirming that combustion has taken place, since this gas is the product of the reaction — it too erupts at the moment of ignition and diminishes in volume as time progresses.

Explosion and Pollutant Dispersion of Oil Storage Tank — ANSYS Fluent CFD SimulationDescriptionThis project simulates the explosion of oil storage tanks and the subsequent dispersion of combustion pollutants across an urban area using ANSYS Fluent. The core of the analysis lies in modeling reacting flow: an explosion is fundamentally a rapid, energetic chemical reaction that consumes fuel and releases heat together with a range of gaseous products, and capturing that behavior requires a flow model capable of tracking multiple chemical species and their transport through the surrounding air. The motivation is a real safety concern — in regions that host oil reservoirs, the tanks represent a persistent explosion hazard, and a single event can release large quantities of pollutants such as carbon dioxide and other combustion gases into the atmosphere. Where residential neighborhoods and industrial units sit close to the tank farm, the way these pollutants spread and reach the surrounding population becomes a critical question for risk assessment and emergency planning. As the capstone of the Chemical Reactions: Beginner CFD Training Package, this project brings together the two threads developed throughout the set — reacting flow and pollutant dispersion — in the most complex case, combining explosion chemistry with atmospheric spread across a real urban scale.MethodologyThe geometry is a three-dimensional urban domain measuring 6.6 km in length, 4.6 km in width, and 200 m in height, created in Design Modeler. Within it, a dedicated zone contains eighteen cylindrical oil tanks, while several further zones represent residential and industrial districts. The domain is discretized with an unstructured mesh of 1,746,979 elements. Because the explosion involves extensive chemical reactions among several gaseous constituents, the Species Transport model forms the heart of the setup. Seven species are modeled — CO₂, SO₂, NO₂, CO, H₂O, C, and air — with air acting as the background fluid throughout the domain. The effect of the explosion is introduced within the tank region through defined energy and mass sources: a heat source of 139,072.7 W/m together with production rates for each pollutant (for example, CO₂ at 0.1358 kg/m³·s, H₂O at 0.0679 kg/m³·s, CO at 0.0047 kg/m³·s, SO₂ at 0.000131 kg/m³·s, C at 0.0068 kg/m³·s, and a very small NO₂ contribution). This source-based representation lets the model release the heat and combustion products of the explosion directly into the reacting-flow field. Wind is the primary driver of dispersion: the northern and western faces of the domain are set as airflow inlets and the eastern and southern faces as outlets. Open airflow enters at 300 K and 20 m/s, directed at 60° (with x- and y-velocity components of 20·cos60° and 20·sin60° respectively), so that wind speed and direction govern how far and in which direction the pollutant plume travels across the city.AnalysisThe solution yields three-dimensional contours of temperature and of the volume fraction of each gaseous species throughout the domain. The results demonstrate that, in the event of such an explosion, the released pollutants are carried into the surrounding residential and industrial zones, confirming the potential exposure of the urban population. As a study in chemical-reaction flow modeling, the project shows how species transport combined with defined energy and mass sources can reproduce the generation and atmospheric spread of combustion products. By the end of this project, you'll be able to set up a Species Transport model with multiple pollutant species, represent an explosion through defined energy and mass sources, apply wind-driven dispersion boundary conditions, and interpret the temperature and species fields to evaluate explosion hazards — a powerful basis for informing the siting, spacing, and protection of facilities near populated areas.